Months After Sandy, Lights Still Out at Manhattan Park

Just as the sky started changing colors on one of the first warm evenings of spring, a parks enforcement patrol officer drove through Hudson River Park, ordering visitors to leave.

Like many parts of the city, the Manhattan park was plunged into darkness during superstorm Sandy. But the park, a five-mile stretch between Battery Place and 59th Street, remains blacked out months later, as crews from the Hudson River Park Trust check and repair 30,000 feet of electrical cable that powers the lights.

But despite the metal barricades set up to block access to the bike path and the river promenade, the popular park is still used after dusk by cyclists, joggers and dog walkers, as ambient light spills in from the West Side Highway, Chelsea’s piers and the ferry terminals.

“The lights being out don’t bother me,” jogger Elizabeth Olear, 20 years old, said on a recent evening. “Lots of people were walking around the barricade gates, so I did too. There was nothing to stop us.”

While the Rockaways and the Jersey Shore are faced with daily reminders of Sandy’s fury—and parts of Battery Park are still without power due to storm damage—Hudson River Park’s blackout is a reminder that’s hiding in plain sight.

The estimated cost of repairing all of the park’s cable, submerged under saltwater by Sandy’s storm surge, and other damage is $20 million, according to officials from the Trust. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has already obligated $1 million for the projects, a spokesman from the agency said.

Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

Photos of Hudson River Park, after sundown.

The damage from the storm, officials say, was extensive.

“The decks of our piers actually erupted in some places during the storm,” said Madelyn Wils, president of the Trust. “The water was pushing in from opposing directions. It was like a physics experiment.”

She said the lights should be back on by mid-May, and the park will then return to its usual 1 a.m. closing time. She acknowledged, though, that the place wasn’t exactly empty at night.

“The park is officially closed at sundown,” she said. “Though people will do what they do.”

For some parkgoers, the presence of enforcement officers—even if they are asking them to leave—makes them feel safe staying put.

“The parks police are around…so I feel super safe,” said Jay Spears, 35, a personal trainer, who was working out a client in the half light.

“It’s dark out here,” said his client, Margaret McClean, 47. “I hope the lights come back on soon.”

To be sure, not everyone feels at ease hanging out in a unlit park.

Lauren Matthews, 21, wasn’t even aware that the park was technically closed but left at sunset anyway. “I’m too scared to come here when the lights are out,” she said. “You never know who could be lurking.”

The mixed reactions about the darkness are not unlike those that came after Sandy, when darkness blanketed lower Manhattan for days. Then, some people left and didn’t come back until the lights were on. Others walked or cycled around the inky blackness, chatted with strangers, played guitar and drank in candlelit bars.

One of the reasons it has taken so long to get Hudson River Park lighted again is that the repair effort includes moving sensitive equipment to higher, drier ground.

“We’re doing work to mitigate the impact of future storms,” said Ms. Wils. “God forbid this should happen again…which I assume it will.”